Tissue formation, wound repair, and many disease processes depend on expression and cell-mediated assembly of the appropriate extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. In particular, oriented ECM fibers are essential for normal tissue development and homeostasis. The organization of the ECM can, however, go awry in many diseases and at sites of injury producing the unaligned collagen fibers that form in scar tissue.
A goal of regenerative medicine is to promote formation of new tissue that closely resembles the normal tissue in organization and function. Controlling cell growth in a spatially defined way enables regeneration of damaged or diseased tissues having the proper alignment of constituent cells and/or alignment of molecular complexes that the cells produce. In particular, cells direct the arrangement of ECM fibrils to correspond to their actin filaments by using cell surface receptors that are indirectly connected to the actin cytoskeleton. Therefore, a major challenge in regenerative medicine is to promote cells to assemble ECM fibrils, such as collagen, into particular orientations or alignments on a scaffold device in order to generate tissues with the required functional properties.
Many methods for controlling cell growth rely on physical patterning procedures that are not compatible with tissue scaffold device utilization. For example, grooved patterns that physically restrain cells may affect cell functions, and stamping of biologics is size and thickness limited.